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Arm Exercises Give Leg UP on Pain
 An aching, cramping, tired feeling in your calf comes on day after day when you’re walking or climbing stairs but goes away when you stop for a few minutes. That’s the classic description of intermittent claudication.
There are many possible causes of leg pain but claudication is usually an early sign of peripheral artery disease, an accumulation of fatty deposits in arteries outside of the heart. Claudication comes on predictably after a certain amount of exercise and is relieved with a few minutes of rest. It may also come on sooner with more intense activities such as stair climbing or dancing.
Sometimes known as angina of the legs, the pain is caused by blockage or narrowing of arteries. Starving for oxygen and nutrients, muscles in the leg cry out in pain, just as the heart muscle responds during a heart attack.
Where the pain occurs depends on which blood vessels are occluded. When the main artery going through the thigh is blocked, the pain is likely to be in the calf. Pain can also occur in the buttocks, feet, thighs or even the arms.
Peripheral artery disease (PAD) becomes increasingly common after age 50, affecting 20 percent of Americans age 65 and over. If arteries of the legs are diseased, those of the heart and brain are also likely to be affected; having PAD more than doubles a person’s risk of suffering a heart attack or stroke.
Don’t Cut Back
Unfortunately, many individuals think leg pain during exercise is a natural part of aging and respond by cutting back or giving up on the activity that brings on the pain. In fact, the best course is to keep on moving.
The best treatment for intermittent claudication–even better than surgery–is walking. Exercise helps train the muscles of the leg so they use oxygen more efficiently and promotes the growth of new blood vessels that bypass the unhealthy ones.
For some patients, however, walking is difficult, either because their claudication is severe or they have other disabling conditions such as arthritis. For these persons, arm or other exercises may also produce a positive effect.
In a study presented at the American Heart Association’s Scientific Sessions in November, 2006, 35 patients with peripheral vascular disease, with an average age of 67, were placed in four groups:
- one group walking on a treadmill,
- one exercising with an arm ergometer (a machine on a table with bicycle pedals operated by the arms),
- one doing both walking and arm exercises and
- a control group that did not exercise.
After three months of one-hour workouts three days a week, patients in all three exercise groups showed improvement in symptoms while those in the control group did not. Although those who walked on a treadmill showed the greatest improvement in total distance walked, the arm ergometer group had similar improvement in distance walked without pain.
The study was small and must be confirmed by other studies. At this stage, however, the results are promising. The authors stressed that “walking remains the best exercise you can do for both your legs and your general cardiovascular health.” But for those who for one reason or another are unable to walk enough, this study suggests that arm exercises might be a reasonable alternative.
Researchers have yet to explain fully why arm exercises can help relieve leg pain, but the authors believe it may be because of improvements in the health of blood vessels.
In addition to the local effects on the muscles used, exercise has more general benefits for the cardiovascular system, improving blood pressure, cholesterol and blood flow. It may be that exercise also releases hormones and growth factors that make blood vessels more pliable and better able to dilate and allow blood to flow more freely. These benefits would mean not only less leg pain but a reduction in the risk of heart attack and stroke.
As the authors pointed out, if you have PAD, it’s a good idea to “get out there and move any way you can.”
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